Christian Lipski’s Many Articles About Hereville

I’ve been neglecting the Hereville blogging for the last few weeks, and I have a bunch of articles to link to!

Today, I’ll link to a series of four (!) articles by Christian Lipski in The Portland Examiner. First, there’s Christian’s detailed report of the Premiereville event at Powell’s on Hawthorne. (I posted some photos of the event here.)

Although he got 100 details right, Christian did get one small fact wrong — my friend Jenn Frederick, who read the part of Gittel at Premiereville, isn’t my sister. But Christian’s article has made me realize that when I eventually do a reading in Ithaca, New York, I have got to make my real-life older sister Allison Andersen read the part of Mirka’s older sister Gittel!

The Portland Examiner also published a three-part interview Christian conducted with me. Unlike most interviewers, who interview me by email (thus saving themselves the transcribing work), Christian interviewed me by phone — he says that the results of phone interviews are extra-lively enough to justify the extra work.

Part one of the interview (entitled “An Unfinished End“), in which we discuss how Hereville was sold, can be found here. Part two, about Hereville and sexism, and also about the joy of huge open mouths, can be found here. And part three, about the perils of using photo reference when drawing, and about the next Hereville book, can be found here.

Here’s a little bit from part two:

…in Hasidic culture, the boys and girls are so separated there are so many years where essentially, other than their immediate male family, they’re growing up in an all-girl society. Everyone they socialize with other than their brothers and their father is female. Stephanie Levine, an anthropologist, wrote a book about the lives of teen Hasidic girls, and argues that kind of as a result of this separation they are incredibly spirited and in some ways more free than girls growing up in mainstream society. The point where having a boyfriend becomes important and you’re dressing and acting in a certain way so that the boys like you gets stalled for years in Hasidic culture.

A big thank you for Christian Lipski for all this writing about Hereville!